Hola Famila!
Lo siento por mis cartas que son
bien cortas. Estoy aprendiendo como escribir todas las cosas que necesito poner
en mis cartas a ustedes. Pero voy a tratar para escribir mucho mas! (Sorry my
letters are rather short, I am still learning how to write letters and what to
put in my letters to you) I will try to write more.
So how is everyone doing? Busy,
Busy, Busy here in Sudo California. We are starting to feel the toll of having
the entire zone to us for Spanish work but we're still progressing! The hardest
part is just planning how we're going to drive from one place to the other in
time and still have time for an appointment. But we are working hard!
We have about 4-5 people who are
solid investigators but we still have to help them overcome a couple of things.
From helping people to have the faith to
move to another place away from their crazy girlfriend, to helping someone have the courage to ask her
husband to come to church, or just simply helping gain/re-find that testimony
they need.
Yesterday we got a call from one of
the members who told us that her nieta (Granddaughter) wanted to talk with us.
So we went up and had a little lesson. It was on God wanting to help us in this
life and the Atonement. The spirit was really strong but I wasn't sure if she
was getting all of it/understanding it. (She's 14 and a member but hasn't been
to church or really had a testimony) So at the end we asked her to say a prayer
and she told us she couldn't. But all three of us me, my comp, and Julian
offered prayers before her to give her an example. After all our prayers she
did pray. It was a simple prayer and short, but after she said In the name of
Jesus Christ, amen, the spirit was so strong in that room. In fact she
immediately started to cry, she cried for about 5 min. I knew that the spirit
was working on her and as she pondered about that short prayer she let the
spirit in her. I don't know if she has ever felt like that before. So before we
went to say goodbye we went into the other room and the Grandma asked us how it
went. She asked me 'how is she?' I said we felt the Spirit. She paused for a
moment looked at me, nodded, almost to tears, and said 'que bueno.' What good. She was thankful that we could help
her nieta feel the spirit and perhaps start to bring her Grand- daughter to
feel the love of Heavenly Father and I know that because of that she can pick
herself back up and keep trying.
In other news, the Spanish is going pretty
good! There are times when I understand perfectly and then there are times when
I think 'What the heck are they saying.' Haha I think I may be eating a little
too much. I have been starting to feel pain in my bellybutton. Elder Stevens
said if you eat too much, or have your stomach distended too much from eating
you can stretch it a little and make it hurt! I never in my life had had this
but because of these Latin people putting 4 servings of food on my plate at
once I may be getting pain in my bellybutton. We had a district meeting Tuesday
and we used little kid tables and chairs because in the Sky Cannon building
they're very strict about their stuff and we need a key to use them. After the
meeting we went to cici's pizza. Later that night at a member’s house, (THE
BRANCH PRESIDENT'S) we had tortas for dinner. I took one bite of it and went to
the bathroom, threw up all of my lunch. I didn't make much of a mess, and went
back out to finish the sandwich! She even gave us eaticate to take home
(leftovers).
Also we had our quarterly interviews with President Kendrick and I asked him what do I tell all these people who ask me where I'm going after I die?(the Mormons) Should I say I'm not sure how we're going to be judged or start explaining what we believe about death and the degrees of Glory or what? He told me 'Sure! Just tell them you're going to heaven Elder Emerick because you are! You are going to heaven Elder Emerick!'And then invite them to find out for themselves. He's a great leader and I'm so thankful to have him as a Mission President. Entonces yo espero que usds les gusta esta carta y tambien voy a mandar muchos fotos! Gracias a ustedes y tenga una buena semana! (I hope you like this letter. I am sending lots of pictures. Thank you and have a good week.)
Elder Emerick